A breath possesses the sky
and stifles thought.
An angel wipes his halo clean
with a cloth
as a bird turns into the sun
with his wings alight with gold.

A feather glides gently,
floating upon more than air.

Something secret shifts.
A bird is walking.

The truths of all misery
engraved into the face of a rain drop
which falls in all directions
and none.

A precious piano stands silent and sovereign
in a room of obscure ambience that hangs from Heaven.
Gathered is a crowd familiar by name and face,
and name and face alone.

A prophet stands a step beneath the piano.
His emaciated ideals are better explained in writing.
The crowd uses his mispronounced prophecies as the material
for their mockeries and their jokes.

A glass ceiling makes them naked to ethereal bodies
that do not care to pay attention.
And if such bodies could speak, they would speak
nothing towards them.

Each soul in the room is selling some
stopgap prescription drug that will last a lifetime.

The preacher is selling God, with all His effete side effects;
the fascist sells purpose with some acrid aftertaste;
and the madman sits in the corner with a thousand low-cost answers,
none of which you can fact check.

“You will see!” the prophet exclaims.
  His voice is weak in its strength.
“You will see the rubble of Man’s Creation,
  and the fractured bones of God.”

Lucifer enters with a proud gait
and collects the silent.

I'm sick of these love songs;
these odes to romance
where a man loves a woman.
I love happiness but
she art an elusive mistress.
She visits me but she seldom stays long;
she never stays the night.

She never lays beside me on my bed
to ease me into slumber.
Come the advent of midnight,
she forsakes me in the dark and
leaves me to the cruel hand of insomnia.
I remain a praying man for
fruitless devotion is better than
accepting the void.

They would see my pain
if they weren't blinded by my smile.
Perhaps I hide it too well,
closing my eyes when I weep.
But the tears that should fall like rain
no one sees for they drown me inside
and never do they leave.

I love happiness
despite she being the misleading
and deceptive dame she is.
I love the fleeting moments of her sweet touch,
I love when she fills my hollow smile
and reminds me why I haven't ended it.
But she seldom stays long;
she never stays the night.

I saw careless monks cut quotidian rocks into sepulchres for their gods;
I saw a girl pour the night into a bottle.
Her delusions sounded better in song, but she could not sing.
I saw a prophet look into her eyes and then resign.
She held a tongue of flame in her hand and demanded him to defy it.

The radio from her car played songs that could never be so quiet.
I saw her paradise interlaced with the night
as the ghost of her danced like moonlight on the lake.
I saw a boy hide and pretend that she cared for him.
She played her part, in case the dawn would forget the sun.

But when the day came, it shot out fire from its shotgun.
I saw her crying as the night lost the war.
Instead of singing, the radio advertised stories to her.
I saw her tears wrinkle in the sun
as she surrendered herself to the dogs.

The moon mocks with distilled grace.
Its light bleeds through panes of glass
to reveal her to Heaven's judgement.
She lies upon waves that cannot cleanse her,
upon sheets of abandon
with devils dancing in deranged
circles around her mind.

She is naked save for the remains
of ripped vestures of white that once
contained all of her purity.

The harlots outside laugh with sardonic voices,
the drunkards laugh at the jokes that spike their liquor,
and the thieves laugh at their spurious wealth.
But they all laugh at her.

She hears the voices of another world
and even they speak to dismantle her;
to haul her down from her untempered flight
on facile wings of wax.
Flirtatious voices whisper
with the strength of God's divinity
but burn with the intent of the Devil.

A cruel air reigns over the room
and stifles her in its dominion.
She holds a handful of the deluge
and her mind is absolved of reality,
but she discerns no creases upon her paradise.
God's angels observe
and bewail her.